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Origyptian Wrote:
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> He "invoked" it by mentioning it at all.

Translation: you purposefully misrepresented the point he was making to create a strawman argument to deflect from your own inequity.

Exactly the same as you do time and again. Here is an eerily similar example from 2015:

QuoteOrigyptian says to Thanos:
"...why are you so adamant to give the Romans credit for those huge megaliths [Baalbek]"?

WTF are you talking about? Do you not remember the conversation about the epic of Gilgamesh where I suggested it might be written documentation of Baalbek existing as early as 2800BC? If I think the Sumerians were writing about it over 2,000yrs before the Romans-how the hell does this equate to you that I am "so adamant to give the Romans credit for those huge megaliths"? Because you once again could not comprehend what was being said I even explained to you exactly what I meant in the next post:

QuoteI'm sorry, but you are almost impossible to communicate with. The point of noting the Epic of Gilgamesh is to show that the Mesopotamians of that time, thousands of years before the Romans, thought there to be structures of such a nature to be attributed to the Gods which Baalbek would certainly qualify. Is not the point of this conversation to show the possibility Baalbek predates the Romans? What is so confusing about this?

So, how the hell does this equate to you that I am "so adamant to give the Romans credit for those huge megaliths"

Or maybe you will recall from that same conversation the fact I suggested what is seen on top of the Trilithon are not Roman, but Phoenician blocks? So if there are Phoenician blocks sitting on top of the Trilithon then how the hell does this equate to you that I am "so adamant to give the Romans credit for those huge megaliths"?

To quote myself from that conversation:

QuoteSo, if the Romans allegedly installed the Trilithon blocks why are there earlier, some even unfinished, Phoenician style blocks sitting on top of them some obviously not part of modern reconstructions? I am not suggesting the Phoenicians are responsible for the megaliths seen at Baalbek mind you, but rather that even older cultures active there may have built on top of them as well which if correct only further casts in doubt a Roman provenance.

So, again: how the hell does this equate to you that I am "so adamant to give the Romans credit for those huge megaliths"?

Origyptian says to Thanos:

QuoteI'm just adding my nail to that coffin that it seems extremely unlikely that the Romans did much to shape the foundation of that complex, that's all.

Thanos replies:

QuoteWhich I am agreeing with you and have said as much long before your arrived.

So, again: how the hell does this equate to you that I am "so adamant to give the Romans credit for those huge megaliths"?

You are parody. You have no clue what you are talking about whether it is the actual subject material or the positions of your fellow posters. The thing is, if you can't even comprehend what your fellow posters are saying to you, often repeated for your benefit, what does this say about your ability to comprehend actual scholarship? I'd say the outlook is pretty bleak.

[snip]

The point of your new thread here is not about "What did the Romans do for us", a dumb question, but rather a veiled misdirection to the real point of this thread which begins with this:

"Similarly, how can we be sure they built the so-called Classical structure of Jupiter/Bacchus/Venus vs. an earlier civilization that the Romans simply copied elsewhere in the Empire"?

And ultimately leads to this:

"It just seem so obvious to me that the Romans had very little, if anything, to do with Baalbek".

So now you have taken the sound premise the foundations of Baalbek predate the Romans to include the theatre of the absurd that now "the Romans had very little, if anything, to do with Baalbek" at all. All of what I showed is the work or Romans. As Graham says, something I have been saying all along, “You’d have to be a fool to argue that the Romans didn’t make and raise up those columns, or the pediments above them, because it’s completely obvious on stylistic grounds, and on the basis of comprehensive archaeological research, that they did".

Origyptian:

QuoteBut my contention is NOT about the Classical construciton, it's the Cyclopean foundation and those blocks in the other field 0.7 km to the south. There is nothing in that stonework that says "Romans" and much that contradicts the notion that the Romans had anything to do with it.

No ___ dude. Who are you arguing with? You keep bringing this up to people who disagree with your other nonsense yet who otherwise support this premise yet you pretend they do not. I don't mean to be insensitive, but are you possibly senile? And regardless, no this is not what you are saying. You are clearly now suggesting the Romans did nothing and it all belongs to earlier cultures.

Origyptian:

QuoteAs far as you know, a more ancient civilization might have built the entire thing, and when the Romans stumbled upon it, they got many ideas of how to extend such an architectural style throughout their Empire, just as they did with the other architectural styles they adopted from the Greeks, Estruscans, etc. There is nothing at Baalbek that can be attributed to a Roman invention. It all could have existed before the Romans got there.

Lol. So then according to you Baalbek was built by the "Greeks, Etruscans, ect"? Oh, but of course even they did not do any of these things because they too got it all from an even earlier civilization. But who? Well, maybe it was the Egyptians but they didn't do any of the work either and just copied it from an earlier civilization. But who? Well, I guess at that point we have to look to a culture that completely disappeared off the face of the Earth sometime between 12,000-1,000,000yrs ago. But what about the Phoenicians? They too built large stone structures using column and lintel construction to rival those of Greece and Rome. Or what about the Nabateans who built Petra?

QuoteOrigyptian Wrote:
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> I have not contended that the Romans didn't have
> anything to do with Baalbek.

Origyptian says up thread:
"It just seem so obvious to me that the Romans had very little, if anything, to do with Baalbek".

No wonder you are incapable of understanding the positions of others when you cannot even understand your own within the same thread no less. Or is this just backflipping?

> But for some
> here to insist that the Romans were responsible
> for what we see in that "quarry" or in the
> foundation of the "sanctuary"

Who here is suggesting this? Give names and quotes. Even Mr Stower has not said either way so who is it you are arguing this with exactly? I did not say the Romans were responsible. Loveritas I do not believe thinks the Romans are responsible and has focused her arguments specifically on your other nonsense regarding the mudslide tsunami. So who then is saying this that causes you such consternation?